Meet my barn door. Or what used to be my barn door. As you can see, it was huge and mirrored and really lovely, and it beautifully covered our new walk-in closet that we had had built as part of a double bathroom/master closet renovation that had just been completed.

This was actually the first time we had ever hired a contractor – we usually do these projects ourselves. But life has changed now, and we decided the time had come to hire someone else to do the work for us. So enter a contractor who could come in and take care of all of it for us. Easy.

We thought.

Needless to say, with both bathrooms being worked on at the same time, it was a very dusty, disorganized, extremely stressful few weeks at our house. Plus, honestly, working with a contractor was definitely not as easy as we had hoped.

But it was finally over now, he was gone, and life was returning to my blissfully peaceful normal. Complete with shiny new bathrooms and an epic walk-in closet to enjoy.

But suddenly this guy had to come back and invade my life again because my engineer husband had thankfully noticed that pretty much all of the safety features that should’ve been installed on this barn door (and were included in the kit that not only we had paid for, but the contractor had actually chosen for us himself) were not used in the install.

Seriously. He just did not use them. Even though the parts were right there.

So what had started out as a beautiful barn door, had suddenly become a very dangerous barn door. And it had to go.

We have a very busy 2-year old granddaughter, Ruby Wren, who visits often and, we realized to our horror, that she could actually pull this extremely heavy 34″ x 84″ door out away from the wall and get behind it because these safety features were absent from the install. This caused a huge risk for the door to jump completely off the track, crushing whoever was underneath it.

When my husband confronted the contractor via email about this (complete with pictures documenting every, single infraction) this contractor offered no excuses, no apologies whatsoever. He just replied very defenseively that he would be there the next morning (Tuesday) at 0800 to remove the entire setup, and give us a full refund.

Since I absolutely don’t handle confrontation well, I was extremely grateful that I had to work the next morning and couldn’t be home when he came. My brave, tough husband would be the one to deal with him … not me. Thanks for that, honey.

The next morning found me in a really foul mood as I drove to the hospital, though. I was sad at losing my beautiful barn door, but I was also furious.

This contractor had actually chosen not to use the safety features that would’ve protected our family. Even though he had them all in his possession. Again, for anyone who may have missed my point … he had them, but decided it was easier to just not use them.

Basically, he simply didn’t care.

As someone who probably cares too much about absolutely everything in life – and was actually at that very moment up before dawn, driving myself to a job where I would absolutely be giving everything I have over the next 12-14 hours because I do, in fact, care so much about other people’s families – I just don’t get that.

How can you just not care?

Honestly, though, this guy had already done a pretty awful job at the entire renovation, so I shouldn’t be surprised that he had cut corners. But he actually played with our family’s safety???

And it turns out that this contractor showed up 5 minutes early that Tuesday morning, and was in and out of our house, removing all evidence of the barn door except for the holes his bolts had left in the wall. And he did it all in under 8 minutes, only speaking to my husband to hand him the refund check, and to have him sign a contract stating that we were releasing him.

So this is what I see now when I look at my new closet. But that’s okay. I’m sad the door is gone because it was pretty, but I’m also thankful it’s gone because it was also pretty terrifying, as well. But don’t worry … we have a new, better one on order right now. And it has mirrors on BOTH sides this time.

So, confession time: all of this has led to a pretty serious 3-week funk for me.

Not because of the door per se, but because of the “not caring” part behind it. And, in my heart, this has just morphed into realizing just how much “not caring” we have in our world. And honestly, this is what’s left me feeling just so incredibly weary.

As a society, I just don’t understand when it became okay to not care about giving our absolute best. In everything.

Whether it’s in a barn door, a boxed lunch, or a delicate open-heart surgery. What does it matter? No matter who we’re doing it for … aren’t we all brothers and sisters? Aren’t we all equally precious? Isn’t your family just as treasured as mine?

And when did it become okay to stop caring about being kind? Considerate? Merciful? Careful?

When did we stop teaching this to our children? That they should care? About everything?

When did it become okay to say (or post) such awful things about and to each other? To absolutely not respect other people’s rights to their own opinions?

When did we become so hard?

And why is this acceptable? For any of us?

Well, it’s not, my friends. No matter how we may kid ourselves into thinking otherwise. It’s just not acceptable. It never has been, and it never will be. Jesus says so.

Thanks for growing with me. ❤

 

Starting young … teaching her to care.

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:12-17)